Reports reveal a rise in hacked and breached data throughout the coronavirus pandemic, these being from such sources as IoT and mobile devices – devices increasingly common throughout the workplace. In fact, research shows that U.K. businesses experienced a 31% increase in cyber scam cases in 2020 from May to June.

The pandemic pushed businesses and workforces away from their usual routines and reliable systems, creating opportunities for hackers to take advantage of. In addition to this, as many would now prefer remote working to stay even once pandemic restrictions have lifted, it’s essential that companies take cyber-attacks, and furthermore their cyber security and adaptations to this amidst the pandemic, seriously. 

Cyber-attacks can be ruinous for owners of a business, a report from Statista released the 25^th of May 2021 revealing:

“The average cost of cyber security breaches in the last 12 months in the United Kingdom was 2,670 British pounds across all businesses, however, this figure becomes greater as the size of a business increases. The cost of a cyber attack is not only financial, with companies having to spend time on recovering from the attacks.”

Ways to Protect Your Company from Cyber Attacks 

There are numerous ways companies can help to protect themselves from cyber attacks, including those listed below: 

• Cyber insurance
• Penetration testing
• Firewalls
• Employee training

By adopting these methods, business owners can help to strengthen their business’s cyber security. 

Cyber Insurance 

Cyber insurance can help to protect a business against malicious cyber-attacks, supporting them in the event of such an attack in various ways. Cyber insurance can cover the following after a cyber attack:

• The costs for investigating the cyber crime
• Reputation management
• Loss of income that’s been caused by the shutdown of the business
• Restoration of computer systems
• And more…

The full extent of what’s covered by cyber insurance will depend on the provider and the details of the cover a business has opted for. 

Pricing from Get Indemnity starts at just £26.91 per month for a basic cyber insurance policy. 

Penetration Testing 

Penetration testing helps to identify vulnerabilities in a firm’s computer system by simulating a cyber attack against it. A penetration test, or pen test for short, can be used to try and breach numerous different application systems, the insights collected from such tests able to then be utilised to address vulnerabilities in the hopes of preventing against real, malicious cyber attacks in the future.   

There are a handful of really specialist companies that offer pen testing, which start from just a few thousand pounds.

Firewalls

A firewall is a type of security device used to help protect a network. It offers this protection by filtering traffic whilst blocking any outsiders from getting unauthorised access to private data stored on computers.  

Employee Training

With so many teams now working from home, it’s vital for a company to ensure that their employees understand how to both avoid and identify cyber security threats. 

It might help to conduct training sessions with staff on cyber security, helping a workforce to become better educated, and therefore more aware, on just how important the cyber security of a company is, and how to protect against cyber-attacks.